Report #2: The Enchanting Tale of the Whydah Bird Tail

Sending a postcard home from Sauri requires
four cinnamon-chested bee-eaters and one African fish eagle.
Birds are popular in Kenya and their images are ubiquitous.
Different species are featured on ten- and five-shilling stamps,
appear in cell-phone advertisements and grace tourism posters
in Nairobi’s
Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Here in Sauri, the equatorial
village in western Kenya where I’m researching avian
diversity this summer, birds are sometimes despised and often
eaten, but occasionally revered.

Benjamin Okalo (right) interviews village elders about their
knowledge of birds and bird folklore.

Photo credit: Justin Nobel

Benjamin Okalo, a freelance
naturalist and bird expert who has also assisted scientists
studying collobusmonkeys,
army ants and butterflies, is helping me with my research.
Each morning Benjamin and I walk several kilometers on paths
muddied from the night’s rain as a rising sun peaks through
maize tassels. We are often joined by children in bright blue
sweaters on their way to school. Using a GPS, I guide the two
of us to my survey points, which are randomly distributed across
the village and often in marshy thickets or between rows of
maize. Once on-site we stand still for twenty minutes and record
any birds we see within a twenty-five meter radius.

The
morning air is a cacophony of bird noise, and Benjamin helps
me distinguish individual species birds by their unique calls.
The white-browed coucal sounds like water being poured from
a jug. The red-eyed dove seems to be cooing "I-am-the-red-eyed-dove, I-am-the-red-eyed-dove." The
Hadada ibis makes a raucous "HAAA." The
yellow-throated leaf-love sounds like children laughing in
the trees.

Birds generally take cover during the hot
midday hours, so Benjamin and I spend afternoons talking to
villagers about their knowledge of local species. Several old
men we spoke to recently lamented the loss of forest birds
like the great blue turaco and giant kingfisher. They also
turned out to be a valuable source of bird folklore.

For example,
many people believe if you tie a rope to the leg of a white-browed
coucal chick, the mother bird will pick up a twig and use it
to snap the rope to free its young. This now-magical
twig will open locked doors and protect a person from wild
animals and thieves.

A male wydah bird shows off its tail feathers.

Photo credit: Justin Nobel

The male whydah bird
uses its long tail feathers to attract females  the longer
his tail the more likely he is to find a mate. Young men in
the village have also been known to flash wydah feathers in
front of a woman, feed a woman roasted whydah or apply a powder
of dried wydah to their hands before greeting a woman in order
to increase their own chances of finding a mate.

A salve of
dried, crushed pygmy kingfisher applied to the back of a teething
child's neck will allow the child to sleep; and roasted cardinal
woodpecker fed to a sick cow will make it produce milk. A swallow
entering the home of a barren woman will help her conceive,
and anyone who kills the friendly African pied wagtail will
be visited in the night by the bird's kin, who will then burn
the person's house down.

Yet the stories are not known by everyone
in the village. When I recently asked for whydah bird at the
local market to find out if the folklore translated into a
thriving trade, I was referred to a man selling chickens. “Chicken
is good meat!” the vendor replied, possibly oblivious
to wydah's other, more potent uses.